Alumna Mary Wall is leaving UC Davis Extension to become director of Summer Sessions, effective Monday (Sept. 19).

She now serves as chief financial officer and director of financial services at UC Davis Extension, where she has worked since 2001.

She holds two UC Davis degrees: a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and a Master of Business Administration, with emphasis in technology management and marketing.

She worked in the Department of Environmental Toxicology and Cooperative Extension in various management and technical positions for almost two decades.

“She has extensive experience in financial leadership and fiscal management, proven entrepreneurial skills, and the ability to negotiate and develop cooperative relationships with UC faculty,” Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter said in announcing that he had appointed Wall to the Summer Sessions post.

“With her leadership and the continuing support of our very talented and hardworking staff, Summer Sessions will continue to grow, in accordance with the Vision of Excellence,” Hexter said.

Wall succeeds Gary Ford, who led Summer Sessions in his role as associate vice provost of Undergraduate Studies. He retired from his full-time administrative post in June, after having previously gone on emeritus status as a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Under Ford’s leadership, Summer Sessions enrollment climbed to about 11,000 in 600 courses this year.

Wall, as part of the Undergraduate Studies unit, led by Vice Provost Pat Turner, will have primary responsibility for Summer Sessions policy and long-range planning, program development, marketing, and the appointment of about 1,200 instructors, teaching assistants and readers.

She also is charged with developing strategic plans that focus on attracting new students and optimizing revenue, and extending the Summer Sessions profile beyond UC Davis and the region, to student populations nationwide and abroad. Online course development is another significant frontier for Summer Sessions, Provost Hexter said.

Before joining UC Davis Extension, Wall worked as chief operating officer and chief financial officer for HealthCheck Inc., Sacramento.

In 1990, she co-founded the Technology Development Center, West Sacramento, with Charles J. Soderquist, where she served as chief executive officer and chief financial officer until 1996. Soderquist, who died in 2004, was a UC Davis alum who served as chair of the UC Davis Foundation Board, president of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association and alumni representative to the UC Board of Regents.

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The Davis campus will have a new fire marshal, Morgana Yahnke, effective Oct. 10, Safety Services Associate Vice Chancellor Jill Parker announced.

Yahnke formerly worked for the Fairfield Fire Department, from 2002 until this month, as the fire marshal, administration chief and public information officer. She has been in the fire service for 20 years, working as a dispatcher, fire inspector and fire prevention supervisor.

When Yahnke takes up the fire marshal’s post, Patricia Johnson will return to her job as a captain in the campus Fire Department. Johnson has held the fire marshal’s post on an interim basis since last fall, replacing Wes Arvin, who moved to the Sacramento campus.

Arvin had served as the fire marshal for both campuses, as a member of the UC Davis Fire Department. But, in a reorganization, he is the fire marshal for only the Sacramento campus, working in Facilities Administration.

At the same time, the Davis campus fire marshal moved from the Fire Department to Safety Services.

Yahnke is a certified fire marshal, certified fire protection specialist and certified fire inspector, and holds a certificate in fire science and a Bachelor of Arts degree in management.

She is chair of the Building and Fire Advisory Committee, sponsored jointly by California Building Officials and the California Fire Chiefs Association; and a principal member of the National Fire Protection Association’s Technical Committee on Fire Prevention Organization and Deployment.

She is a past president of the Northern California Fire Prevention Officers, a section of the California Fire Chiefs Association.

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Christopher J. Sindt of St. Mary’s College will be in residence at UC Davis in 2011-12, as a participant in the American Council on Education Fellows Program, which aims to assist administrators in advancing further in higher education leadership.

In choosing UC Davis as the site for his fellowship, Sindt is returning to the university where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in English. At. Mary's, in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is an associate professor of English and associate dean of the School of Liberal Arts.

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter will serve as his primary and secondary mentors, respectively.

“Chris is particularly interested in observing and learning more about our strategic planning initiatives as well as our campus’s consultation and decision-making processes,” Katehi said in a memo to the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors.

She said Sindt will attend council and cabinet meetings “to observe, participate and learn from our discussions.”

Sindt is teaching a poetry course at St. Mary’s this semester, and this will limit his time at UC Davis to once or two days a week in the fall quarter. He will join the campus full time in the winter and spring quarters, Katehi said, and will share an office on the fifth floor of Mrak Hall.

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The Board of Regents this week elevated UC Berkeley Professor Barbara Allen-Diaz to the top position in the university’s division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Allen-Diaz, a professor in Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources, had been an ANR associate and assistant vice president since 2007, and now becomes the first woman to ever lead the division, as vice president, reporting to the provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs.

ANR programs, including Cooperative Extension and the Agricultural Experiment Station, are located on the Davis, Berkeley and Riverside campuses. The division operates nine research and extension centers and more than 50 county offices throughout the state, with nearly 1,000 Agricultural Experiment Station faculty, Cooperative Extension specialists and Cooperative Extension advisers.

Allen-Diaz succeeds Daniel M. Dooley, who was appointed in January 2008. Ten months later, he agreed to take on additional responsibilities as senior vice president for External Affairs — and has served in both roles ever since. Now, with increasing demands in both positions, the university decided to replace him at ANR.

Read the complete news release.